I don't believe Bristol is pregnant. The reason the governor gave for exposing her child's pregnancy was to dispel rumors that the newborn Trig was Bristol's son, not hers. If the goal was to show the rumors were false, why couldn't she just release medical records from the hospital? Why couldn't she have her doctor (the one who said it was ok to fly for 8 hours while 8 months pregnant, with contractions, after leaking amniotic fluid), publicly say that she delivered the child? Why put her child in the spotlight unnecessarily,just to get the scrutiny away from her? Whether or not Bristol is pregnant, why would Palin use her to deflect the controversy about who was the mother? Lots of people are complaining about the media and bloggers bringing the daughter into the campaign, and invading her privacy, but why did Palin take the giant leap and thrust her daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy into the spotlight, when there were other ways to prove her case?

The campaign only needs to buy a little time, and the announcement of the pregnancy accomplished that. I hate being this cynical, but why won't Sarah Palin release any medical records? why is her incredibly poor judgement, demonstrated by her decisions to travel back to Alaska and bypass hospitals better equipped for premature births, not an issue?

Then there's the issue of Bristol Palin leaving school in the middle of her junior year. Earlier reports said she was absent for five months due to mononucleosis (an incredibly long time for that illness), which coincided with the last five months of Trig's gestation (wherever that was). I just read this morning that an assistant principal of her high school in Wasilla said that she left the school in the middle of her junior year, and transferred to a school in Anchorage, without giving any reason. Now if Bristol is five months+ pregnant as the family claims, that would place conception in mid-to-late March. But she was not only not at school in Wasilla at that point, but she was also suffering from mono - did she have sex while she was infected? that's a pretty risky thing to do. what's the real story?

I hope I am wrong, but the only way that will be proved is if Bristol delivers a baby sometime before December. I would think that the stress of being in the public spotlight while her mother campaigns for VP might be too much for a pregnant 17-year old, and would also think that her parents, who care greatly for her well-being, would try to minimize the pressures on her by keeping her away from the campaign and the associated media attention and travel. It would be a shame if the stress impacted the health of the unborn child, although I am sure that would be blamed on the media, and comments like this.

Which is why, in the interests of her children and pending grandchild, Governor Palin should release her medical records concerning her most recent pregnancy as soon as possible, to silence skeptics like me. and she should stop using her children as a campaign prop, bringing them out to show what a great, if uninvolved, parent she is.

I don't question whether Bristol is pregnant. But your questioning it makes me wonder, too.

Imagine if your version of things were true. If so, Mc would be out too.

Who knows???

Wow...I hope the McCain/Palin ticket doesn't cater to your needs to get your vote. I wouldn't even want your vote if you're going to ask for personal information like that. Are you also a skeptic who thought the WTC bombings were not by terrorists?

Gov. Palin does not need to release her private medical records to prove anything. It's is not everyone's goal to dispel constant rumors. It perhaps may be the goal of the Palin family to keep private information (like medical records) as they were meant to be...private.

As for your claim that she is an "uninvolved" parent, I'm assuming (perhaps naively and falsely) that you're not a parent or a caretaker whatsoever. Just because a woman works and has a large family does not make her an unqualified mother. How dare you even allude to that. The only skeptic you seem to be is one that questions the strength that women can have and how much we can actually do.

I am a teacher in an urban area and there are many 14- and 15-year old girls around me who are pregnant and boys who are already fathers. Does that mean that their parents failed them? No, it means that the children made a mistake and are now accepting the consequences and doing as much as possible to help provide their child with a better life. It means that the parents of the teenagers will help their children raise a child into a better life.

Children are always paraded in campaigns, no matter what party or what election. It shows a different side to the candidate. Sen. Obama has an obvious love of his children, which is why he chooses to be affectionate with them on public television. Heck, Obama's children were on stage at the convention. Gov. Palin is equally proud of her children and is demonstrates that publicly.

GV, Palin has demonstrated extremely questionable judgment, which justifies asking for additional information to support her decisions. We spent over a trillion dollars on an invasion and occupation of another country, because many people accepted, without question, the distorted reasoning that "justified" that militray action. It is our responsibility to vet the candidates for office, especially if they won't do it themselves. If you want to be VP or President, you must be prepared to be completely transparent, and to be able to back up every decision you make. Without a track record of any significance, Palin has to be able to prove that she is capable of making important decisions, especially in real time.

I am a parent of two kids, but I wouldn't attribute your incorrect guess to naivete, it was just an unsupportable assumption. I am not blaming her child's pregnancy on her, but she obviously can not be around very much if she has to travel 90 miles each day to her (full-time) job. Her husband also works full time, so if her daughter was home sick for five months with mono, who was there to watch her?

I have no problem with women running for political office. I think it's great that many are doing just that. However, if you have a young family, I think it is imperative that at least one parent be pretty available before you take a job like governor of a giant state (size wise, that's a lot of travel), let alone vice president. Since Palin became governor, her husband has continued to work, which means not a lot of parental involvement.

Yes, children are often paraded in campaigns, and if they are used to show what a great family you have, then you better be prepared to defend such a claim. It's like being on trial, once you introduce a witness or piece of evidence, the other side gets to cross examine.

gc2088 - Why shouldn't Palin be expected to release her medical records? All the other candidates have. Well, McCain sorta did. I think that releasing medical records has usually been the norm recently in Presidential races. I'm not saying I agree with the original posters premise - I hadn't thought about that angle before, but I do not see why Palin should be held to different standards than everyone else.

I am a teacher in an urban area and there are many 14- and 15-year old girls around me who are pregnant and boys who are already fathers. Does that mean that their parents failed them?

Yes.

No conservative would have said any different, from the days of the Moynihan report through the end of August of this year.

She must be teaching ignorance, illogic, and Intro to Poverty and Crime.

Why is it improper for her to release records if John McCain released them? My bottom line is that the Palins are free to do as they decide as regards their children, pregnancies, etc. I'm not even especially interested in whether or not she covered for a pregant child by claiming Trig as her own -- she wouldn't be the first to do so and I don't consider it disqualifying. My problem is that she apparently felt more comfortable 'outing' her teen daughter than directly answering the questions raised. Yes, candidates 'use' their families all the time, including Obama, as campaign trail props. Given that John McCain has recently begun omitting his adopted daughter from family photos used by the campaign, her willingness to sacrifice her child's privacy to protect herself from questions just piles up as more evidence that these are people who aren't above embarrassing even their own children if it will put them in office. Definitely not the 'values' I'm looking for in leaders.

Why don't you try teaching? Or are you too scared to set foot in an area of "poverty and crime?" I have led my students to some of their highest test scores in a system that continually fails a large number of socioeconomically low students. I teach my students content that will lead them to success in the future, not my political beliefs.

Liberals say that they are the champions of the poor and that they understand the plight of the common people and their common problems. Well obviously some people do not because if you stood in an urban (or rural) classroom for one week, you would see the issues that today's teenager's face today.

Let me just state what I had hoped to be my initial point when I posted earlier. As a moderate, I want to make my decision for president based on the issues, not personal scandal that is irrelevant. I am classically conservative and socially liberal but I don't think any party within the past 20 years has really demonstrated the fiscal responsibility I hope for. I have not decided who I am going to vote for yet but I want the media to report to me issues, not something as ridiculous as parenting. Different parents have different views on what's right and there are many ways that work. Sen. Obama's mother was 18 when she was pregnant with him; he seems to have turned out just fine.

If McCain chooses to divulge his personal medical records, then that is his choice. If Gov. Palin does not, it is her choice. I don't really care who's baby it is...I care if our next president will lead us to something better than the past 8 years.

Sorry, I forgot one thing: kgsbca - I apologize for my earlier assumption. It was a naive choice of mine.

GC, it's not about a baby scandal, and I certainly wouldn't not vote for McCain/Palin just because her daughter had a child at 17 (there are LOTS of good reasons for not voting for that team). It's about judgment, and being truthful. If Palin lied about being pregnant to initially cover up her child's pregnancy, and then made up yet another lie in announcing it, we've got a huge problem. And then there is the issue, regardless of the real situation, that Palin would throw her daughter to the wolves to avoid further questions. What kind of mother does that? That is not just bad judgment, but incredibly selfish behavior. What kind of example is she setting? She sacrificed her child's privacy to escape being held accountable for her decision to fly from Texas to Alaska.

How can you reduce those issues to "I don't care who's (sic) baby it is"? That's not what we're discussing here. The issue of Bristol's pregnancy is only relevant in the context of should parents be educating their children about the risks of having sex, and while that is something that should be discussed, it's not the point I was making. Sarah Palin has subjected her 17-year old child to intense media attention, for the sole purpose of furthering her political career. NOT a leadership trait.

Teenager's shoulda been teenagers.

Who's shoulda been whose.

I'm from an area that had high crime and poverty. My family was downright poor. My elementary school nevertheless produced a lot of people who overcame the problems -- and many who didn't.

BO is one of the finest people in USA. Extremely well-educated. Biden, too.

Mc is a hothead prone to rash decisions. Palin is a vigorous and lusty lady with a really awful family problem. I wouldn't trust her with much. She also seems to be a hothead.

We the people have to find out if Trig is Sarah's or Bristol's. Deception has been a serious problem that cost many soldiers lives or limbs and damaged the lives of millions and crippled USA financial health.

Just because you know pregnant 14 or 15 year-olds doesn't relieve Palin of responsibility to represent even a defamatory accusation on soiid grounds. The reported circumstances surrounding Trig and Bristol warrant discovery of factual information. And if she falls, Mc has to fall as well.

Gosh I don't know what I was thinking. Thanks for correcting my grammatical errors. I guess I'm not as well-educated as BO.

When Sarah Palin shows that she is the true mother of Trig (which seems like it's being portrayed as a soap opera), we will realize that we just wasted several days debating the maternity of a baby. Just like the rest of the personal claims that have already been dismissed, this one will too when she falls into the trap of we the people, those who want to act like Big Brother.

Well, if values are so important, what about Obama's deal with Tony Rezko when Rezko was publicly under investigation? That doesn't seem like a solid decision from a good presidential candidate.

So, if Gov. Palin says that her daughter loves and does well in school, do I deserve to know her child's personal grades if I say that I don't believe her?

A little sensitive, GC, about the errors? I wasn't correcting your error for the sake of pointing it out, I just didn't want to get dinged for it (I have enough typos of my own).

If Sarah Palin ever proves she is the true mother of Trig, it will not erase the fact that she threw her child under the bus, just to (temporarily) deflect attention. As I said, it was an extremely selfish act, which was totally unnecessary, but the best she could think of on short notice.

If you want to compare campaign contributions from unsavory characters, and we start with the Republican party, we'll never have time to get to Obama's questionable contributors. The "permanent majority" as architected by the indicted former house majority leader DeLay was dependent on contributions from all kinds of unsavory characters - mainly those who received federal contracts and favors from the Bush administration.

If the governor's daughter didn't receive incompletes for the second half of the last school year for unexplained reasons, then you would be able to not disclose those grades. But she left in the middle of the school year, for what reason was that?